Festival Orchestra to Play at Critical Mass

Image stolen from cyclechic.blog.hu.

This year's Critical Mass won't be quite as subdued as I feared. The closing bike lift at Heroes' Square will feature probably the most sublime musical accompaniment Hungary can offer: the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

According to posts on the Hungarian Cyclists' Club site as well as on the Facebook page of the orchestra:

"The Budapest Festival Orchestra, as a sign of respect for the Critical Mass on Sept. 22, at the end of the event, will welcome cyclists with music in Heroes Square."

BFO Musical Director Iván Fischer includes this personal message to CM participants:

"I really like and respect Critical Mass. They give me confidence in our future."

Needless to say, that's some endorsement. And from one of the most accomplished and respected figures of Hungarian society and international arts.

A colleague who saw this news was skeptical of whether Critical Mass and classical would go together. And I can't dispute that it will be an unusual pairing. The background music at past rides has been firmly grounded in popular genres; one particular memory is of a sun-dappled bike lift a couple years ago behind the Petofi Csarnok, and having Bob Marley's "Iron Lion Zion" blasting from a boom box.

I love Bob Marley and I loved that moment, but in terms of evangelistic value, we can do better. The cycling movement already does quite well with students and old punk rockers like myself. It needs to diversify and send a message that cycling is for everyone, no matter their age, hair style or musical tastes. On this score, the booking of the BFO is more than a coup -- it rocks!

Major Upgrade for Budapest-Vienna Trail

Here's a stretch of Eurovelo 6 just south of Szentendre. Hopefully this will benefit from the new project.

 According to an announcement this week, the government plans to spend an unprecedented HUF 12 billion (EUR 43 million) to construct and refurbish the Danube-bank cycling path connecting Budapest to the Austrian border.

As the cycling blog Kerekagy reported Monday, the project would involve construction of 200 km of brand-new bike path. On the remainder of the 282 kilometre section, there will be refurbishments of existing paths or signage would posted along side roads. In addition, according to the blog, the project would include work on 38 bridges, two large ones across the Danube and 36 smaller ones.

The route in question is but a small section of one of the biggest international bike routes in Europe. Euro-Velo 6 runs more than 5,000 km all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea, crossing France, Switzerland and Germany, and following the Danube through Central and Eastern Europe to the river's mouth in Romania.

Here's some of the less impressive signage on the route (again between Szentendre and Budapest).
This is a little unfair, though: the signage is generally good, it's the path that needs work.

The section from Austria to Budapest is a favourite route of Western Europeans looking for new cycling adventures in Eastern Europe, but the quality of the riding surfaces so far has left much to be desired.

At a news conference in the Hungarian community of Komarom, along the Eurovelo 6 route, the government’s special commissioner on cycling affairs, István Garancsi, said the project is in “advanced negotiations.”

Garancsi noted that he didn’t know the intentions of the Slovak government, whose territory lies on the opposite bank of the river over much of this portion of the route. Regardless of that, the basic concept of the project has been established, he said.

Speaking in the presence of Hungary’s State Secretary for Infrastructure Development Pál Völner, Garancsi said the project could be completed within the current budget cycle.

One of the remarkable things about the announcement is that Garancsi was appointed to his position just last April, and at the time he was unknown to grassroots cycling groups. Formerly the owner of the Fehérvár and Videoton football clubs, he was named to the position by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán with the remit of organising recreational cycling and tourism and development of the bike route network and cycling transport.

A Subdued Critical Mass Announcement

BLAST FROM THE PAST? This stolen shot is from 2007.
One of CM's main organisers, Gábor Kürti, is riding third from the left.

The coordinates for the fall Budapest Critical Mass have been announced, albeit in an unusually subdued fashion.

According to a post Wednesday morning at criticalmass.hu, the ride starts at 6.30 p.m. September 22 (European Car Free Day, as usual) in front of the Buda Park Stage (Budai Parkszinpad). This is by the Feneketlen tó at Kosztolányi Dezső tér.

The destination will be Heroes' Square and the bike lift will be in front of the Museum of Fine Arts. The post neglects to indicate what time the lift will be. Neither is the route specified, although that does accord with the tradition of the fall CM. As opposed to the spring event, the fall ride doesn't have a police escort and there is no prescribed, cordoned-off parade route. You ride in traffic and are expected to obey traffic rules.

I would expect a more detailed notice to be posted in the coming days on criticalmass.hu, but I'm not certain. As of Monday, the only hint that there was going to be anything was a facebook page that said there would be a ride but, at that point, divulged few other details. The only hint that CM had any future was a survey posted August 24 with questions about people's opinions on about Critical Mass.

As some readers will remember, organisers put up a cryptic post before last spring's ride declaring that it would be the "first last" Critical Mass. At that point it wasn't clear if they were really calling it a day or merely goading participants into pitching in with more support. But over the ensuing months, there were a couple other impromptu rides (one celebrating the opening of the bike lanes on the kiskörút, the other proposing a toast to the new lanes on Margit Bridge). So with with all that activity, it was my impression that things were just going according to routine and I was sort of expecting that this fall's ride would go off as usual.

However, seeing as it is just over two weeks until Car-Free Day and we've still not seen the customary redesign of the CM website, there's been no call for volunteer escorts, and there's been nothing more than a three-line, incomplete post about it -- well, maybe things ARE winding down on the CM front.

I don't have anymore insight on this. We'll see what the coming days have in store ... .

Bike Shop with Beer on Tap

Bike repairs are done right out front. The price list is next to the hat.

Following on a recent post about how bicycles and cycling are being used as a marketing tool, here's an idea that's in the same vein -- sort-of: a bierstube on Római part with a bike wheel on its logo and a conspicuously placed bicycle repair stand out front.

You can't beat the riverside seating at Fellini. Grab a beer, sink into one of these chairs,
and dig your toes into the gravel. Bikram yoga's got nothing on this.

The Fellini Római Kultúrbisztró is a relatively new addition to the many outdoor bars and restaurants along the Római bank. It's a bit to the north of the main cluster of them, and therefore in a quieter, greener setting. It's a tiny place with a seating deck right down on the water and a short drinks list that includes both bottled and draught Belgian beer, including Delirium Tremens.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure if the bike service is used to attract customers to the bar, or vice versa. Római part, being on the Eurovelo 6 route on the main Buda-side bikeway, has always attracted lots of bike traffic. I suppose if you open a bar here, you're going to get cycling customers with or without a bike-repair service. But the Fellini definitely has the market sewn up for cyclists in distress. At any rate, it's a natural place for a bike service -- it's surprising it took so long for someone to think of it.

This is the main cluster of Római part beer joints. Bikes seem to have always been the preferred way to arrive.

They do everything from oiling your chain (HUF 200) to adjusting brakes and gears (HUF 600 each) to chain replacement (HUF 1,100). And the Fellini would seem to be a pleasant place to wait for the work to be done.

Twelve more km of bike routes

Handy file photo of improvements to Varsányi Irén utca in May 2009 

With help from the European Union, Budapest will add 12.4 kilometres to its bike-route network by October.

The planned cycling routes, targeted at commuters coming from the outer agglomeration into the centre, are to be completed by October, according to a report in kerekagy.

The project is expected to receive HUF 694.4 million (EUR 2.6 million) of which HUF 439.6 million (EUR 1.63 million) will come from the EU.

The new routes would add substantially to the city’s existing cycling infrastructure, which runs approximately 187 km, including lanes, dedicated bike paths and other routes. The new bikeways would comprise six separate sections in districts III, X, XVII and XXI.

One route would improve cycling commutes from Csepel Island toward downtown along a 2.9 km stretch of Szabadkikötő út. With a link across the Danube on Kvassay Bridge, it would include two, secure, 30-place bike racks en route.

A second route would run 1.2 kilometres, joining Csepel Island to Pesterzébet across the Gubacsi Bridge. It would include new 32-space bike racks in three places.

Then on Pesti út, two routes would be created in two phases to allow better access to the Metro stop at Örs Vezer tér. Of these two routes, totalling 6.9 km improvement, 2.7 km would be a signed route along low-traffic side streets. Seven bike racks would be installed along the way for a total 66 bikes.

A fifth bike roadwork would connect Kőbánya központ with Örs Vezer tér along a 1.5 km section of Fehér út.

The last element would be in Óbuda, with a bikeway along Bécsi út and Nagyszombat utca. Of this, 800 metres would be a painted lane and 1,400 metres would be a signed route. Along this route, 14 racks for a total of 160 bikes would be installed.

(If this was as tedious to read as it was to write, you can see the maps here.)

During a press announcement, David Vitezy, Managing Director of the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), indicated that cycling investments would be guided by a more strategic vision than in the past. Infrastructure shouldn’t be built route by route, but rather as an integrated network, he said.

Part of the reason for a more focused approach is an impending investment in a new city bike-sharing system. Comprising 1,000 bikes and 74 docking stations, the system is scheduled to open in the spring of 2012 at a cost of EUR 4.79 million.

“With that many bikes, there’s already a need for a new traffic order,” Vitezy said.

Hungary Beats Denmark in Cycling

Image stolen from http://drunk-and-ride.blogspot.com/

Here's a riddle for you (and don't blurt out the answer if you've already heard it!): We all know that the cycling-est country in Europe is the Netherlands. But which country do you suppose comes in second place?

Denmark or Sweden, perhaps?

Those would have been my first guesses, as well. However, according to a Gallup poll published earlier this year by the European Commission, the second cycling-est country in the EU is -- drum roll, please -- Hungary!

What the hell??

I should qualify my terms, here. The study in question, entitled "Future of Transport", was commissioned by the EC's Directorate General Mobility of Transport, and focussed on Europeans' transport habits, their reasons for choosing particular modes, and what it might take for them to switch to, or make greater use of, more sustainable modes than the private car.

It's pretty dry stuff that's intended as guidance material for policy makers and the like. But what made it interesting to me were the results to QUESTION D7: What is the main mode of transport that you use for your daily activities?

Naturally, the Europeans who most favour the bicycle are the Dutch: a full 31.2 percent say it's their main mode of transport.

The Danes ranked quite high, as well, with 19 percent naming the bicycle as their main mode. But that was good enough only for third place; the Danes were slightly edged out by the Hungarians, with 19.1 percent claiming to travel mainly by bicycle.

These survey results were published back in March but didn't catch my eye until I saw mention of them in a recent newsletter of the European Cyclists Federation.

The figures didn't take me completely by surprise. Years ago, when I was studying for a degree in environmental sciences, a Hungarian professor mentioned that prior to the political changes, cycling had something on the order of a 30 percent modal share in this country. However, when asked to cite a source for this statistic, he came up empty.

Still, I'd heard other claims about cycling's popularity in Hungary. During research for my thesis about utility cycling in Budapest, I interviewed an urban planner who said that the bike's modal share in Debrecen, Hungary's second largest city, was 20 percent.

And just recently, I saw a survey published by the Hungarian Statistical Office that showed cycling had an 11 percent share in the country's "distribution of transport modes" (közlekedési módok megoszlása). (There are probably methodological reasons for the 8 percent discrepancy between the Gallop and the Hungarian survey results, but I don't know what they are.)

No doubt, part of the reason I find it hard to accept that Hungary is a front-runner in European cycling is that I don't get out of Budapest enough. Although the city is home to perhaps the largest Critical Mass movement in the world, and is at least a regional front-runner in terms of urban cycling, the fact remains that Budapest is a big city, and big cities are, by default, hostile environments for cycling.

The rest of Hungary is comprised of much, much smaller communities. Even Debrecen, with 200,000 inhabitants, is just a tenth the size of the capital. Less than half the country's population live in cities larger than 10,000 inhabitants. The rest are in very small towns, villages or unincorporated areas.

This is why, despite all the hard work and accomplishments of Budapest's cycling movement over the past six years, the city remains a black spot on the national cycling map. The same Hungarian survey showing an 11 percent share for cycling nationally put the figure for Budapest at a paltry 1.1 percent (2009 figure!).

On my few visits to villages in rural Hungary, I've noticed a cycling culture that has nothing to do with contemporary hipsters and their fixies and messenger bags. It's grannies riding around on creaky one-speed Csepels with rod-actuated brakes and baskets to carry their groceries. Undoubtedly, part of the reason they're on bikes is economics. But it's also due to the fact that in most Hungarian settlements, traffic is calm, distances short and space abundant. And of course there's the Alföldi landscape, which rivals the Netherlands for its topographical blandness.

Still -- there are other countries in the EU with low income levels, small settlements and flat landscapes. There must be more behind Hungary's rich, and largely unknown, utility cycling culture. Just recently, I started work on a project to promote cycling as transport in small and medium-sized towns in Central and Eastern Europe. It will give me a chance to investigate the topic, and I hope to write here about my discoveries.

In the meantime, I'd appreciate any comments from those with insights.

An Open-and-Shut Case

The view from the north of the tunnel shows that cyclists are, again,
riding on the carriageway to get around the ongoing bridge work.

The new bicycle tunnel under the Buda bridgehead of Margit híd was closed shortly after opening last week due to an apparent signage screw-up, reports the index.hu news portal.

The view from the south shows a cyclist coming off the
carriageway and rejoining the bike path.

The signs on the new tunnel indicated that pedestrians, as well as cyclists, are permitted through the tunnel. And according to the Budapest Transport Centre (BKK), that isn't correct. The contractor for the long overdue bridge renovation needs to correct the mistake before the tunnel can reopen, and BKK is certain this will happen "rövidesen", meaning "shortly".

Considering the bridge project has been delayed countless times and has now taken about twice as long as originally planned, we'll take that with a grain of salt.